


Shrike

by pauliemeatballs



Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Do Not Interact if you condone create or indulge in sexual fanworks of Erik and the Luminary, Do Not Interact if you ship Jade with Hendrik, Do Not Interact if you ship Sylvando with his father, Do Not Interact if you ship Sylvando/Jade/Hendrik with the Luminary/Erik, M/M, Pedophiles Don't Interact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 11:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauliemeatballs/pseuds/pauliemeatballs
Summary: Named for the Hozier song; Sylv & Hendrik reconnect after the Kingsbarrow trial and slowly come into their romantic feelings for each other, even if at first they don't think to define it as such. (IMO the post-game never happened because its terrible & everything that took place could have easily occurred in the primary narrative without retconning the party's character development so let's just pretend the story continued from the end of Act 2)





	Shrike

**Author's Note:**

> As I said before:
> 
> -Pedophiles Don't Interact  
> -Do Not Interact if you ship Sylvando/Jade/Hendrik with the Luminary/Erik  
> -Do Not Interact if you ship Jade with Hendrik  
> -Do Not Interact if you ship Sylvando with his father  
> -Do Not Interact if you condone create or indulge in sexual fanworks of Erik and/or the Luminary  
> -Do Not Interact if you condone create or indulge in sexual fanworks of Sylvando, Hendrik, and Jasper as children

“You sure you don’t need any help, honey?”

“Oh no, I’m fine. …Well, there is one thing I would like.” Serena tentatively slid the stew cauldron aside over the campfire to make room for a teapot. “It’s just that I found the most wonderful recipe for an after-dinner iced tea, and I thought it would be nice to have what with the humid weather… it just requires some sleeping hibiscus and some herbs. It wouldn’t be too much trouble, would it?”

“Certainly not. Where would we find the ingredients?” Hendrik waited patiently while Serena hastily flipped through what appeared to be a pink personal notepad, no doubt full of little scribbles providing her with different kinds of recipes for holistic medicines, and drank in his surroundings. The party had set up camp near the beaches of Puerto Valor, where the white sands met the grassy flower fields leading into the alabaster seaside paradise that was Hendrik’s second home. He felt his heart warm a little with pride thinking of how lovely it was inside and out. At the same time, inevitably, he was reminded of Sylvando, who was also patiently waiting for Serena’s notes and undoubtedly lost in his own thoughts while staring into the campfire.

Immediately, Hendrik felt guilt hook his insides. It had not been too long ago that he and Sylvando completed their quest at the Kingsbarrow, where Don Rodrigo had yet again bestowed unto them an indispensable life lesson. Probably the most important of all. And yet Hendrik could not shake the shame he felt over being so curt with Sylvando, countering his jovial compliment with cold, aloof dismissal. Part of the embarrassment lingered due to his unwavering loyalty and reverence for Don Rodrigo, and how moments before he revealed the nature of his lesson Hendrik was throwing it’s sentiments to the wolves with his rudeness. The remaining weight sat heavily on his shoulders, knowing from Sylvando’s reunion with his father that he does in fact hide his true emotions under a facade of cheer. Hendrik wondered why his pangs were so intense over what seemed like so small a thing. 

_Because I want to be his friend again._

Hendrik flushed so intensely at the vulnerability of the thought that he automatically glanced at the sky to see if the sun came overhead. It was difficult learning how to process his emotions after keeping them under lock and key for so many years. Decades, even. Duty and responsibility came first, leaving almost no time to learn how to be pleasantly sociable. The most he could muster was softening the tone of his voice, and even then it was already irrevocably authoritarian. Inside, he was truly soft, and he felt as if he were piloting his own body from within, at a loss of how to navigate the controls.

It was for this that Hendrik was partially jealous of Sylvando, the bloom of envy in his gut warm rather than cold and indicative of a desire for connection in place of superiority. He could charm anyone instantaneously with a saunter or a wink, and with a voice that bounced and lilted with laughter and cheer like dandelions on a breeze. Hendrik also thought of the sunlight glimmering on the ocean; beautiful, mysterious, and intangible, but whose warmth is still palpable. Another flush washed over his cheeks, with less intensity this time due to the warm weather and the fact that the matter of his pondering was already laid bare. There’s only so much shock he can feel over his own emotions before he admits that he’s felt this way for years, but with no way to articulate it. It was during moods like this that he felt truly unintelligent; for all the lessons and skills he dutifully absorbed from his teachers over the years, he could not unlearn his stiffness.

“Ah, here it is! Sorry for the wait…” Serena sheepishly wiped her damp forehead and handed the notepad to Sylvando, who so studiously looked at the sketch of sleeping hibiscus that Hendrik genuinely couldn’t tell if he was upping his flamboyance to ease Serena’s social anxiety or if it came naturally to him at this point. “We got you, darling. We’ll be right back.” Sylvando skipped away merrily past Rab, who had suddenly emerged on the path after heading into Puerto Valor to purchase meat for their stew. “Where’re you lads heading off to? I just came back from the shops.”

“Oh no, we’re not buying anything. Serena wants to make us some iced tea and she needs some pretty little flowers–- _like herself_ –-to make it.” Sylvando gave her a wink and Hendrik could tell her skittishness had melted away completely. He could not discern the warmth he felt in his chest as contentment or more enviousness. “Ah, well, take yer time. The stew won’t be ready for a while. Everyone else seems to be having fun anyway.” Rab gestured to Veronica, Erik, Jade, and the Luminary, who appeared to be playing a game involving volleying one of Veronica’s fireballs to and from each other. “I’m sure Hendrik will have a lot of fun picking flowers,” Sylvando commented wryly. Hendrik gave an amused grin, and glanced over to the Princess. It was so nice to see her doing something fun for a change, especially since she most likely never had a chance to be a real child. Those years had passed, and she became an adult faster than she should have, but Hendrik knew in his heart that it must have made the game that much sweeter. His brain wordlessly connected the thought to rekindling his friendship with Sylvando, and immediately he felt as if a fireball within him had burst. He took a deep breath and turned to follow Sylvando up the grassy path when he paused mid-skip to call after him.

* * *

The two were soon out of the party’s sight, hidden by the large gray rocks that bordered the grassy outer fields of Puerto Valor and the path to the beach. The air was fragrant with the perfume of all kinds of flowers, as well as sea salt and a faint smoky, savory scent carried by a gentle breeze that could only be coming from the Hotel Casino kitchen. Sylvando wasted no time trying to match Serena’s sketch with other flowers in the field, but Hendrik was not as focused. The sight of the city and the lighthouses only served as intrusive reminders as to why he wanted to be alone with Sylvando in the first place. He approached him tentatively, the other man crouched down with his back turned as he explored the foliage. The guilt began snowballing in his stomach into anticipation, until he felt his mouth might burst open with apologies.

“Sylvando.”

“Hm? You found it?”

“No, I-–um, not yet. I would just…I’d like to talk, if that’s okay with you.”

Sylvando turned as he sensed the soft urgency in his voice and looked up with gentle curiosity. “About what?”

Hendrik clenched his fists and unclenched them, his head bowed and his eyes staring straight down as if the words were hidden somewhere in the grass. He decided he could only apologize in the manner he knew best. He knelt as if he were before King Carnelian, head still bowed and gaze still glued to the ground, feeling the same kind of politics of worthiness and unworthiness applied. He certainly felt unworthy to look upon Sylvando, for a multitude of reasons, but his newly gained sense of self awareness didn’t help due to the embarrassment he felt regarding how he chose to deliver this apology. Again, he was within and without.

Sylvando let out a dramatic, effeminate gasp. “Hendrik! You haven’t even asked me out to dinner yet…”

The gasp triggered Hendrik’s reflexes and he looked up at Sylvando as he spoke, with an equally theatrical expression of surprise and bashful coquettishness. Hendrik could not manage to stifle a smile and a slight laugh, but again he resumed his genuflection, and cleared his throat.

“No, but in all seriousness–-I am…I need to apologize, dearly…for the uncouth way I have treated you. In the Kingsbarrow I dismissed you, and insulted you.” He sighed, letting himself feel the guilt, letting himself feel. “Even before our lesson I have not treated you with trust and respect as I should have. I delivered selfish and unfair judgement unto you simply because I refused to understand your way of life and attitude. I refused to open up to that which makes you happy, and instead made it about myself.” As the words came out, Hendrik momentarily found it easier to lift his gaze, but as his mind found the next words, he hesitated at the bitterness of their familiarity. “I do not expect your forgiveness, nor do I deserve it. I only wish to atone.” Hendrik quietly exhaled and resumed an upright position, still not looking at Sylvando. A short silence lingered between the two for what felt like forever to Hendrik, until he felt a cool hand on his shoulder that seemed to quell the heat within him. Sylvando looked at him knowingly, his thick eyebrows raised as if to say, “yes, I bet you are sorry.”

“You are a pompous, stone-headed, brute.” Sylvando’s voice had firmed slightly, punctuating each word as he spoke them. “But you are _my_ pompous stone-headed brute.” Hendrik felt the flames roil in him again at the unspoken implications of “my” that were promptly soothed by Sylvando’s toothy, earnest grin. Hendrik found it all too easy to find eternities within seconds as far as Sylvando was concerned, as his eyes traced Sylvando’s long sideburns, and the wrinkles around the corners of his mouth, and the lines under his smiling eyes, and the way his gums framed his teeth, and the way the bridge of his long nose crinkled in amusement, and–

“I’ve had much worse said to me by people who are worth less. I expected it from you, to be honest.” He put his hands on his hips and took up his knowing gaze again. “As we all know, you have the emotional depth of a brick.” Hendrik felt himself involuntarily smiling again at Sylvando’s effortless wisecracking. “That is something I need to change,” he responded, and felt seriousness plateau in him again. The two began to walk side by side through the flowers. “I feel as though I have missed out on much of my…emotional education, through no one’s fault but my own. I haven’t opened myself to others and allowed them to see beyond the role I play. All my life, I have dedicated myself to the cause, to my king, to my people, to this realm. I’ve sworn to safeguard it untiringly, but in doing so I…have forgotten myself.”

Sylvando nodded. “I understand.” Hendrik glanced and saw half a smile ghost over his lips, the other half a slight wince. “I feel I had something to do with that, no?” Hendrik looked at Sylvando inquisitively, but he swallowed his protests as Sylvando held himself and looked down at the ground as Hendrik did.

“You were my friend, Hendrik. I never once stopped believing in you.” Sylvando raised his head with such a reverent, nostalgic expression that Hendrik felt the shattering emotional walls within him scrape and drag at his insides as they fell. “I wrote a letter to you and Papi before I left, but I didn’t do anything with it. Obviously. It just-–it felt better to get it out somehow, even if I ended up getting rid of it.”

An emotionally strained silence was pulled taut between them.

“It's not that it--" A sigh. "It wasn’t easy to leave you.” Sylvando fidgeted between crossing his arms and continuing to hold himself. “Every time I’d thought about running away before I remembered the little boy from Zwaardsrust who was afraid of the dark, and cried himself to sleep every night, and tried to reach out to me and be my friend even though he didn’t know a lick of Valorian. Or the common tongue, for that matter.” Sylvando smiled and gave a quiet laugh that promised tears. Hendrik thought of sea mist.

“...The day that I left I decided to stop thinking of you.” Sylvando’s hand snapped up to wipe a tear from his cheek. “I was still angry with Papi so it was easy for me to put him out of my mind. But not you. Not ever. I had to convince myself that Papi would be happier with you as a son, and then I was free.”

_He blames himself. **Why** does he blame himself?_ Hendrik felt his jaw clench and his throat close up painfully. The debris of his emotional walls weighed heavily in the pit of his stomach like they would burst through any second, and everything would flow out of him like a water balloon.

Whatever was left of the resolve of Sylvando’s voice began to crumble. “But it wasn’t enough and I–-you know, I traveled a lot and earned a name for myself, and I would perform and make people happy and I was living my dream, and it was just–-it was enough and it wasn’t enough and I kept leaving and going because-–”; he let out a tearful exhale and sniffled. “Do you know what it’s like to be surrounded by fans and co-workers and people who love you and still feel alone?” His eyes shut tight, and he raised his hand to wipe his tears again but instead left it against his head, an anguished grimace painting his strained face that illustrated the depth of his own deftly cloaked despair. Hendrik moved to hug him, and for how severely touch-starved he was, he still hesitated and could not bring himself to do anything past resting his hands on Sylvando’s shoulders. His inner self screamed and howled in frustration as the controls of his own responses remained infuriatingly foreign. He felt he was banging on the walls within himself, trying to burst out and hug Sylvando tight enough that he knew these arms of his would keep him safe and loved forever, that Erdwin’s Lantern could fall and raze the land with it’s dark fire and Sylvando would emerge unscathed, protected by love and illuminating the darkness with his own indefatigable light, the light that shone brilliantly and blinded Hendrik and like the sun embraced him with it’s intense warmth such that his senses seized and all he could feel was the bottomless hunger and ache he could not find the words for no matter how hard he deliberated and analyzed and clawed at the walls of his mind for some definition, any definition. Until now.

"Do not _ever_ think that your escape bore any adverse effects on me." Hendrik's dry, tight throat made him all but croak the words out, saturated in tears. "It was your happiness that was at stake. Not mine. You chose life over the death of the spirit, and you are all the more braver and nobler for it, more than any hero in any song. I've just--I have only...I've missed you so."

Sylvando bridged the gap between them and came into Hendrik’s chest on his own, making it easier to complete the embrace. Tears rolled down his face as Sylvando wept into his shoulder; soft, tired sobs that suggested this kind of emotional episode was all too familiar to him. Hendrik held him close, and noticed that he was an entire head shorter. His own fit into the curve of Hendrik’s neck like a puzzle piece, and Hendrik’s mouth and nose rested against the top of his head. His hair smelled good, and his scalp was warm. Hendrik noticed the grey puffs around the collar of Sylvando’s tunic and saw the reds and blues and pinks of the circus dart across his mind’s eye. He wondered how many night Sylvando buried his own turmoil as far as it would go for the sake of making people forget theirs, how folks in the audience will never truly comprehend how devoted he was and still is to his cause. Hendrik smiled fondly.

“...We’re not so different, you and I.”

Through the despair, Hendrik felt the muscles in Sylvando’s face lift into a little smile against his chest, and Sylvando felt the low, gentle grumble of Hendrik’s reassurance penetrate his chest and weave around his heart like ribbons. “I don't know, I’d hate to be a stick in the mud like you,” Sylvando replied, muffled against Hendrik’s tunic. The two of them laughed softly. Sylvando looked up at Hendrik, arms loosened around his waist, and Hendrik looked down at him, lost in another little pocket of eternity. Sylvando’s sadness made the age in his face stand out, underscoring the lines beneath his eyes and around his mouth, but in such a manner that his elegance and beauty were elevated like fine wine. Hendrik always found himself transfixed by Sylvando’s sideburns one way or another. They continued well past his ears and a few inches past his jawline, much too closely cropped to be considered mutton chops but still serving as a beautiful frame for his angular face, and accentuated his fluid presentation of gender in a way that Hendrik found immensely magnetic and attractive. There was something about Sylvando’s sweet gaze mixed with his musings on how well he’d aged that suggested natural domestic familiarity, and it made Hendrik momentarily forget to breathe. He also noticed how Sylvando’s eyes were not gray, but in fact an extremely pale shade of light green that were framed beautifully by his lashes like opal in a bed of feathers. There were small, unplucked hairs around and between his eyebrows, and his cheekbones, while not as high or as prominent as Hendrik’s, contoured his face in such a lovely way that Hendrik’s mind recalled the marble statues of Arboria, their slopes and curves cradling their ethereal beauty.

They were very close to each other’s faces and could not for the life of them put a name or a purpose to this intimacy beyond what they assumed was platonic consolation, despite their hard hammering hearts, and their flushed faces, and the hunger, the damned hunger. Hendrik’s mind kept connecting dots regarding Sylvando’s bushy eyebrows and thought of other places on his body where it undoubtedly grew in abundance; the backs of his hands, his legs when he removed his shoes and made his ankles visible, and his chest. Always his chest with the low U-cut of his shirt that allowed his impeccably defined clavicle and the cleavage of his pectorals, dusted with hair, to peek out enticingly.

Sylvando’s gaze traced Hendrik’s face and was able to stencil out the tenderness beneath his rocky demeanor, how everything about his appearance made Sylvando think of handsome princes in fairy tales. His hair was a soft lavender that seemed to glow in the sunshine, and the sharpness of his goatee was disrupted by the extremely fine, light hairs growing in around his equally sharp jawline that could only be seen from how close he was. The further contrast between his mythic beauty and his mountainous muscled body stirred something in Sylvando that he had not felt for many years. Hendrik’s teal eyes reflected a lifetime of sadness and tragedy and war and the endless responsibility he shouldered to keep everyone safe, and as Sylvando’s eyes were drawn to the lines of fatigue underneath them he began to understand Hendrik’s comment.

The two of them rested their foreheads against each other in peaceful, brief meditation before parting their embrace, giving each other reassuring smiles, and holding each other’s hands in a way so subconsciously reflective of matrimony that they wished they could rewind time in order to relive the sensation of their bodies sliding against each other.

"I'm home now," Sylvando said. The hunger had suddenly changed to an indulgent, dizzying fullness as if they’d eaten too many sweets. Still, they were at a loss, the unfamiliar tongues of their hearts falling on deaf ears. They squeezed each other's hands before parting, and resumed their stroll.

“I don’t think you ever stopped being a knight,” Hendrik remarked after some time as the two walked closer.

“What makes you say that?” Sylvando responded coyly, even though he already knew the answer.

Hendrik gave a contented sigh, looking up at the clouds. “You have taught me there is no one true way to be a knight.” Sylvando did not have it in him to respond with another wisecrack, and was instead greatly moved by his friend’s words. He smiled to himself, drinking them in. As if to punctuate the scene, Sylvando’s eye caught the indicative candy-red hue of a sleeping hibiscus. “Oh hey, look! We found one!” Hendrik felt his whole being perk up at hearing the music return to Sylvando’s voice. He plucked it from the ground and gave it to Hendrik who kept it in a little satchel on his belt, courtesy of Serena. “Okay…and…how many does the recipe require…hmm…” Sylvando whipped out the notebook again. “It says ‘a handful’. How much is a handful?” he said with mild comic impatience. Hendrik chuckled. “Well, now that we know what they look like, the search won’t take much longer. Let’s get a little extra should Serena want to experiment with them further.”

* * *

It was almost dusk by the time the pair finished. Hendrik’s satchel was full and Sylvando, lacking pockets, opted to keep the herbs in the space above his belt between his shirt and tunic, holding them in place with his hand as if he were perpetually about to bow. They moseyed along the path back to camp despite Rab’s distinctively accented voice telling them to hurry along to dinner.

“Hey.” Sylvando glanced up at Hendrik with a brilliant little grin unmistakably caught in his peripherals. Hendrik continued to look ahead but still returned a smile–“Yes?”–and was immediately caught off guard by the thick perfume of lavender being shoved in his face. Hendrik gently took the small bouquet Sylvando picked for him and watched him wave his free hand in the air before completing an actual bow, with no shortage of thespian flair. “I found these growing near the edge of the cliff. For you.” Hendrik grinned and chuckled softly, tucking the flowers into the side of his belt at the stems.

“Thank you. Though I feel I should be giving them to you.”

“How come? It’s because I’m so dainty and beautiful, no?” Sylvando gave a vivaciously coy facial expression that made Hendrik laugh. “A handsome prince deserves only the finest tokens of affection,” Sylvando continued, illustrating his advances with a flamboyant gesture of the hand.

“Oh, I’m a handsome prince now?”

“Of course.”

“I thought I was a pompous stone-headed brute.”

“Who says the two are mutually exclusive?”

The two broke out into jovial giggles, and Hendrik adjusted the flowers so they wouldn’t slip out. “If I’m a prince, what does that make you?”

Sylvando gestured to himself, deepening his voice for dramatic effect. “I am the dashing, mysterious bard who’s come to whisk the prince away from the monotony of palace life.”

Hendrik continued to smile and, in a princely manner, held out his elbow for Sylvando, who curled in his free arm and walked more closely to Hendrik. It didn’t come as a moment of eureka, but Hendrik felt he might be onto something as far as these feelings were concerned.

“I should be so lucky.”


End file.
